Fire Gulutzan/Give him Coach of the year All Purpose Thread

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I'm sure the owners will be pumped to pay GG to not coach for the next few years after 6 games!

We seem to be paying him not to coach now.


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[BACKCHECK!!!]

I think firing Hartley needed to be done.

Not because he's a bad coach, but because he clearly lost the room last season. He's a task-master of a coach, and the conventional wisdom is that those guys have a shelf life. And that's certainly how things played out last year.

And I was definitely willing to give Gulutzan a chance. He has a stellar minor-league track record, and previous experience as both an assistant and head coach in the NHL. That kind of proven record at lower levels and valuable experience at the highest levels is a fantastic foundation for an up-and-coming star coach.

But boy oh boy.

I think there are vanishingly few coaches who significantly improve their team's performance. The large majority of coaches are in the mushy middle, where they don't have much impact one way or another. And there's a few coaches who are actually a hindrance to their club's performance, but I think that's quite rare.

So I don't agonize over coach selection, as it's not usually a big deal who you choose as long as he's not one of those last kind of coaches.

Gulutzan has absolutely been one of those coaches that hurts his team's performance so far. That's a rare thing, but this is what it looks like.

I'm inclined to give him little to no rope when it comes to playing this out. He's making questionable decisions, those decisions are not working out, the team looks bad visually, they are not improving, and the results are absolutely abysmal.

I've rarely supported a Flames coach being fired, and I've never wanted to see one fired mid-season.

But this is ridiculous. This is exceptional. Gulutzan may indeed be a good coach, but it is clearly not working out here, and it is not working out in a very dramatic and convincing fashion.

If I were GM, I'd be doing the leg work to find a replacement coach ASAP, and I'd be looking to pull the trigger within the next few games unless things dramatically improve.

[Gord Wappel]

because this is a "hot takes" thread;
and we are dead last in league standings;
At this point in time, the following (previously seemingly impossible) appear possible;
Gaudreau and Monaghan wil not be the next Kane and Sharpe.
The goaltending last year wasn't the main problem as it generally believed all offseason.
This sixth overall Tkachuck is not sure to be more successful than last one
Hartley wasn't so terrible.
Treliving isn't so brilliant. (and neither are most products Dragons Den invested in).
"Calgary is no good" threads won't be banned.

[FaFaFlamey]

If you fire 2 coaches in the same year, someone higher up needs to go. That's a big screw up on whoever hired the coach. And 1985 called and wants their bright red Flames jerseys back.

[tkflames]

On the Core Playing for Each Other
I thought Gio came and the core came out during the 3rd yesterday (especially after the boneheaded penalties in the 2nd). The pushback is still there (especially following each intermission it seems), but the lack of execution is horrible to watch and overall confusion to watch.

On the Power Play
In the pre-season against the Jets, you could see the makings of a good power play. Quick one touch passes and quick shots. Last night, the Flames scored two goals from screened shots in the third, then on the power play, they try to feather that "perfect" no chance pass through the middle. Too slow, too predictable, too boring. With guys like Gio, Hamilton & Wideman on the points, rifle it from the points and top of the circle and collapse to the net. Wideman has scored this way, Gio has scored this way, Versteeg has scored this way each in their last two games. Use Johnny on the sidewall to create some space for the points and stick Brouwer & Monahan in front of the net. It's not that complicated.

On Coaching Preparedness:
All of this leads me to a lack of coaching preparedness. The systems both Power Play and overall looks like a cookie cutter strategy without any consideration for the strengths of the team. Rather than watching tape and trying to establish a strategy for the team to kick off the pre-season based on strength, it looks like the coaches took the summer off and meet the players for the first time at camp. No strategy in place, no understanding of the teams strength. Core reasons that lead me to this conclussion:

Preparedness:
1. Way too many players in camp for way too long. This looked like a meet and greet rather than a focused exercise trying to get a team ready for a playoff birth.

2. Experimenting with ridiculous defensive pairings in the first game of the season. Every Flames defender was available for the pre-season.

3. Playing and signing of Grossman and keeping Korpikosky/Higgins as long as they did.

4. A completely different power play strategy and zone entry strategy than being used during the season.

5. Practicing with lines that are different (or have been proven for many years to be ineffective) from the game.

Lack of Understanding of the Players:
1. During his post-hiring interview GG wanted this team to move as a 5 man unit. Their current strategy is to have 4 guys stand and 1 guy skate at full speed as a 1 man unit. This is not happening. When you want to play a puck possession game with a defense that moves as well as this team, the strategy should be to lead with the puck carrier (defense or offense player) and the remaining 4 support. If the puck carrier gets pinched off, then drop the puck back, colapse back to your own zone and take another run until you break the neutral zone. St. Louis and Chicago are very effective at this with a less mobile defense. The key is changing it up often enough with a dump in so that the defense can't cheat. The 1 vs 5 strategy does not work.

2. The power play strategy is garbage. I described above what this could look like as a more effective alternative. The key to taking advantage of a player like Johnny, is to force the team to respect him instead of focus on him. What I mean by that is that we look to be channeling everything through Johnny and wait for him to make a sexy move leading to a goal. He is good enough to score like this on the occasion depsite the opposing team's focus. However, unless we diversify the point option, the entire defensive box can collapse toward Johnny and remove his space/time.

3. Defensive pairings - I dont think anything else needs to be added here.

4. There is nothing wrong with experimentation, but if this is the strategy to get guys going, then seperate Johnny & Monahan. Stick a player that's going like Backlund with him that can get puck possession and has some speed/skill.

Coaching Change

This reminds me a lot of the (I believe it was the Savard?) Chicago early season fire to bring in Joel Quenville. The problem is I don't see the next Quenville out there. I dont think there is anything internal available (D. Cameron is worse, Ryan Huska has a hard enough time with a development team, anyone else?)

In my opinion GG is the worst coach since the last GG and we are a bad road trip away form this turning into Marc Savard Part II. At least last year the games were watchable.

[calgarygeologist]

At this point I would be willing to give Torts a chance on the bench.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by Machiavelli

Johnny's been bad, but at least I see the effort level. I want to scream when he takes hacks and whacks and abuse and no one on the team does a single thing about it. The smallest, most skilled player gets ganged up every damn game. Someone needs to grow a pair

This. We're totally the pre-McDavid era Oilers. Feel free to knock around our undersized superstar, no biggie. This team has no balls whatsoever in terms of a physical game, it's embarrassing.

This is starting to feel a lot like last year. They'll probably finally find their game and start gelling when they're a hundred points out of a playoff spot and it's way too late. The painfully slow starts every single year (with 2014-15 as the lone exception) is really getting old, and I have zero confidence in this coaching staff to be able to fix it.

[The Professor]

Yup, it's bad!

[Joborule]

Can we fire Gaudreau, Monahan, D. Hamilton, Brodie, and Giordano? Because when your best players are in fact your worse players, you ain't winning squat.

The coaching definitely isn't exempt, but ultimately it's your players on the ice that keep the puck out of your own net, and put it into the other. And right now the players that are suppose to be carrying the team are contributing goals against rather than goals for. Just how they perform on the power play alone...they've had their Halloween costumes on this whole time because whatever that thing is, is giving me the jitters.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

At this point I would be willing to give Torts a chance on the bench.

This is literally the worst suggestion in CP history.

And it would be so even of Tortorella wasn't already coaching another team.

[Resolute 14]

As far as Gulutzan goes, this is what happens when you hire an idiot as your coach and pick assistants even more inept than he is. Unless we start like 2-15-2 or something, We are probably burning at least a year, if not two years of Monahan and Gaudreau before Treliving feels free to correct this major mistake. And when it happens, you can be damn sure that he will have lost autonomy on the change. Burke will certainly be playing an active role in Gulutzan's replacement.

Cameron, Sigalet and Gelinas need to go right now.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by FaFaFlamey

If you fire 2 coaches in the same year, someone higher up needs to go. That's a big screw up on whoever hired the coach. And 1985 called and wants their bright red Flames jerseys back.

Clearly things are emotional around here, but let's leave the awesome jerseys out of this.

[BurningSteel]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

Nashville Predators Power Play: 47.4%
Columbus Blue Jackets Power Play: 44.4%
Calgary Flames Power Play: 4.0%

Hilariously large difference. It's the beginning of the season, but it's amazing how much worse the Flames PP is compared to other teams. The Preds are capitalizing more almost 12 times more often than the Flames.

The PK stats aren't much better.

Both goalies have very low save percentages. The Flames have the most goals against goals against in the league. The Flames have the worst winning percentage in the league, good for a 30th place pace. The Flames also have the worst goal differential. Things can't get much worse.

All this while the team is completely healthy. I guess we can at least give some credit to the trainers, medics, and conditioning coaches for this.

As of now, the Flames have the lowest playoff chances in the league at 29%. However this doesn't take anything except win/loss records into account.

But maybe the Flames just need to get their mojo going. If Johnny, Monny, Gio, Brodie, and Elliott return to a reasonable level of play, a turnaround can happen pretty quickly. Treliving can try to shake things up. Maybe the coaching staff can somehow energize the team. Or maybe one of the players can truly lead by example. It's still possible, in fact, I think it's likely to happen at some point. Just hopefully sooner than later. The Flames really might need a coaching change of some sort, just to give a spark.

Sorry. This post was all over the place.

Glug glug is that you??

[Justin]

As some people on here are aware, I watch the games here in Newfoundland with the time difference, so for me puck drop is usually 11:30 PM. It is painstakingly hard to stay up these days to watch this team under Gulutzan. I have always been the east coaster that had no problem getting excited to stay up until 2:30 AM watching a game on a weeknight. However, I have to force the motivation to stay up this season, even on weekends.

It's downright terrible coaching. Just awful. It's such a shame too because this team has so much promise on paper, talent wise.

Something needs to be done while the season is salvageable. There's no use waiting beyond that, if that's the case than just shoot for last and be done with it.

[jmac98]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

This is literally the worst suggestion in CP history.

And it would be so even of Tortorella wasn't already coaching another team.

I imagine the person who wrote that was just being feciciois or smarmy. Regardless, at least loathing Tortorella incites an emotion. The coaching and subsequent reflective play on the ice at present is the equivalent of Ferris Buellers teacher taking attendance.

[Alberta_Beef]

If our star players were playing like stars, the Flames would have a winning record. The problem is the top players, not the coaches.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by Justin

As some people on here are aware, I watch the games here in Newfoundland with the time difference, so for me puck drop is usually 11:30 PM. It is painstakingly hard to stay up these days to watch this team under Gulutzan. I have always been the east coaster that had no problem getting excited to stay up until 2:30 AM watching a game on a weeknight. However, I have to force the motivation to stay up this season, even on weekends.

I know a certain diehard Czech fan who gets up at 4am to watch the games and he is questioning his decision to do so too. After last night he's decided he's going to just sleep instead. When the committed fans like you and CB start to pick sleep over frustration that's telling.

[agulati]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

If our star players were playing like stars, the Flames would have a winning record. The problem is the top players, not the coaches.

Top Players do need to step up.

Our bright spots in the season so far have been our middle 6/bottom 6 players. Backlund, Frolik, Brouwer and Stajan have looked good. But if these are your top players, we are ending with the correct results

5,7,13, 23 and 27 are getting paid the bucks which they honestly are not living up to right now. That can be blamed on the players, but it is also up to the coaching staff to find ways to get the players to perform. it is a systematic issue. It might not even be the actual systems, but the process of teaching the system is either not successful or is taking long.

I still think it is too early to pull the plug on the coaches and the top players will turn it around soon enough, but the problem is more the preparation, which the coach shares responsibility for

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

If our star players were playing like stars, the Flames would have a winning record. The problem is the top players, not the coaches.

Agreed. If you're Treliving, what do you do about this?

[spuzzum]

With Hartley being paid by the team, would he have to report if they called him to coach? If he didn't report, could the Flames then stop paying him?